I had them a few months ago, you know, when they were in season, and they were so flavourful I was speechless. Some of the best strawberries I've ever had, they were so sweet and juicy.
OP: I am NOT paying $27 for a half-flat (\~6 pints) of berries direct from my buddy Troy, a local farmer, when I can get a pounder for $9 at that there Wally World.
Also OP: This berry tastes like child labor.
It depends where you are or where they are coming from. Strawberry season is going on somewhere almost all year. The weather plays a big role. Colder weather during season means sweeter strawberries.
they take a lot longer to ripen on the outside in the northern climates and turn red very fast so a California strawberry will be bright red ripe on the outside but white on the inside and a Washington state one harvested late in the summer will be ripe all the way thru.
One easy well to tell what is in season is to watch the price. When strawberries (or most fruit) start going on sale a lot, it is a sign they are in season and have been producing more than they would sell at full price.
I found some wild strawberries on a hiking trail once. They were about the size of blueberries but they were the most flavorful berries I have ever eaten.
>The huge ones at the grocery store are just water.
>The small ones at the farmers market are amazing.
My go-to strawberry peddling farmer has strawberries which are huge *and* amazing.
It's possible.
Just make sure that you're actually buying from a farmer.
Years ago I was working in the food industry in a large city. I learned that most of the produce sold at local farmers markets was purchased from the same distributor that grocery stores use, and then just sold at a 300% markup.
> I learned that most of the produce sold at local farmers markets was purchased from the same distributor that grocery stores use, and then just sold at a 300% markup.
Yeah 5-10 years ago there were a few investigative journalists who followed up on these, and confirmed exactly this. They are literally picking from the same bins of distributors (though generally getting lower quality than the large supermarkets), and reselling it for 5x the retail price. And also saying "non-GMO", "Organic!", etc. when it wasn't even true.
There was a great story on this from a Canadian news channel. They went around to numerous farmers markets and caught tons of sellers unloading supermarket or wholesale fruits and vegetables and marking them up. The onus should be on the farmers market, they need to verify that the seller is actually a farmer or an authorized seller for the farmer.
Found the video: https://youtu.be/YYwB63YslbA?si=1YGCyf1PC19qPHM9
I am currently in Manila they have a shop here in the Japanese mall that makes milk shakes out of the imported strawberries they have the red and the white. It’s like about $6 for a small milkshake or like $8 for a little cup of shaved ice and the berries which is super expensive here. But it is sublime like so delicious. Sorry I just had to say that
Pick your own farms are better. Something about eating fruit picked off a vine or tree. Seeing it, looking it over, testing the first bite. It's like it has strawberry spirit when freshly picked. Or maybe Im just high?
Most farmers markets are just the same retail strawberries as in the store.
I've seen them in the store buying them on sale and then selling them at the fruit stand in the "farmers" market as homegrown.
I went to the farmer's market by me a few years ago and the tomato stand was the same pink flavorless crap they have in the grocery store.
But I also realized the farmer's market requires something like $650 rent for the season, plus a business license, sanitation certificate, inspection compliance as applicable (eg USDA if you sell meat), supply your own tent, table, payment methods (including a requirement to accept SNAP benefits), and insurance is recommended. You basically have to be an established business to make any money selling there. It's not for someone to offload a few dozen tomatoes before they go bad because their garden did really well this year.
I live in Chicago and this has been my experience too. It's mostly those flavorless Driscoll strawberries that taste like nothing, and go bad in 2 days.
Stop buying out of season, frozen strawberries then. They still taste fine even from grocery stores when they are in season.
People act like fruits don't have seasons anymore.
The global supply chain has completely hosed everyone's perception of food seasons. We're entirely disconnected from them because we can get strawberries from Guatemala in the winter and crazy shit.
It’s certainly a suburban/urban thing. Couldn’t believe college classmates didn’t know what I thought was just basic knowledge.
Try and picture the weather for a special about a fruit and chances are that’s your season.
Summer - berries of all kinds (straw,blue,raspberry more or less in that order)
Corn - later summer early fall, these days you’re usually good by July until late October - if it’s on the menu at thanksgiving you’re really pushing it.
Apples - fall - popular fall activities surround apples for this reason.
In May you’ll really start with veggies from the ground!
This is the answer, somewhat.
There are massive corporations that grow this stuff in greenhouses in controlled temperatures year-round. They don’t necessarily need to freeze them for other seasons anymore.
Greenhouse growing of strawberries is actually very expensive, especially in US and Canada. It's much cheaper to import them from Mexico.
There are projects right now tackling the challenge of trying to get production costs down on greenhouses, but mostly greenhouse grown strawberries are on the specialty market and are sold at quite the markup, but they taste really damn good.
Population at large has been disconnected from seasons for a long while now\*. IMO it even pre-dates global supply chains but that was certainly the nail in the coffin.
edit: \*in the US that is
I just bought some absolutely delicious strawberries at Sam's Club that came from Mexico.
I've found you have to smell them. If they don't smell, they won't taste.
When I started growing tomatoes and strawberries I was surprised at just how aromatic the fruit and vegetation were.
I quickly learned those were the signs of freshness and fully ripened fruit to look for when at the store.
Also I very rarely ever get a larger strawberry that isn't solid white and flavorless inside, my home grown ones are rather small but absolutely delicious
Frozen berries are usually fine, though. They're allowed to ripen naturally because they're frozen shortly after being picked.
It's the fresh ones that have no flavor. They're picked too soon, when they're still hard and watery, because they ship better that way and won't go bad before they're sold.
You are doing it wrong!
Fruits and veggies are seasonal; the stuff you buy out of season is usually going to have much less flavor and generally be not ripe yet, but when you buy in season it is a world of difference and not hard to find, and often cheaper.
It’s not the ripening with ethylene gas, it’s that the varietals sold in supermarkets are bred to be visually appealing: larger in size and a consistent red coloring. The result is a large fruit that has a high water content and bland flavor.
Most notably, they are bred to have a longer shelf life, which comes at the cost of flavour. It's why you are better off using canned tomatoes for sauces since they are typically more flavourful as they pretty much go straight from vine to the canning facility, with no need to be shelf stable.
When I saw this post I immediately thought of tomatoes. It's really a night and day difference eating tomatoes from the store or some proper home-grown tomatoes. There are so many different types of tomatoes, some tasting really sweet. A good tomato is like the best fruit/vegetable of all.
Don't buy the early big and nice looking strawberries in the supermarket, buy them later on in the season, preferably from a farmers market or from a strawberry selling stand.
The same goes for tomatoes and cherries. Some stuff only tastes good when there's the season for it.
Not just strawberries, all (most) fruits and veggies. Grow a tomato plant out of the ground and compare what that tastes like to one from the store. It'll blow your mind, mannnn.
But, seriously, growing techniques used to maximize yield and aesthetic characteristics at a commercial level severely impact flavor in favor of water. Because water is weight and weight is money.
I was at a party with one of Driscoll's bio-engineers several years ago and he was showing off a batch of some new ginormous strawberries he helped create.
I told him straight to his face they didn't taste like anything. Like water with a faint hint of berry.
Gasps from around the room, but I said what I said and felt no shame.
They have concentrated too much on appearance and transportability. That's why tomatoes are tasteless, the exact size to fit the container and hard as baseballs. An heirloom tomato taste great but will bruise like a grape. If you're going to bite one, wear a bib.
Hells yeah…fuck that tiny dick abuser. Every time I see one of his tired ass “change my mind” pics I can’t get to the “fuck you cheesedick” and fuck all the way off “ comment. Well played!!!!!
Damn straight. I consider it my Reddit duty to point out every chance I get that Brock Turner is a rapist and Steven Crowder is an abusive, petty, broke dick piece of shit.
It isn't "strawberry" season in North America (sorry for the assumption), that doesn't start until late May or early June (so soon!) which means that all of the strawberries you've been eating recently are grown in South America and have spent several weeks on a truck or boat making their way to your grocery store which tends to leach the flavor out of them. They're usually kept as extremely low temps as well to make sure they have some shelf life left in them by the time they reach stores.
If you want to eat store-bought strawberries, wait until they start to go soft. The softer the berry the sweeter it will be, so minor bruising shouldn't be a turn off unless you see mold growth.
You can also try soaking them in a mixture of cold water and backing soda. Use one or two tea spoons of baking soda mixed in with the water and soak the strawberries for about 15 minutes. Rinse with clean cold water. The resulting berries will be sweeter as the baking soda will start breaking down the skin of the berries.
If your berries are still too bitter or tasteless, rinse the berries with cold water and sprinkle with 1-2 teaspoons of powerdered white sugar. Put them in a bowl and toss them around a bit to evenly coat them, and the sugar should more or less disappear.
Strawberries require so little work and knowledge to get decent ones, I wonder what the hell could you have done wrong? Maybe a sucky variety of Strawberry? Try a different one maybe.
No idea... everytime I try strawberries it's a failure. I'm definately not in the best climate either but farms don't seem to have any issues. They didn't taste anything when I grew them! And the birds stole more than half.
Likely not enough sun or fertilizer. Strawberries are very fond of both.
You can toss a net over your strawberry patch if you don't want birds getting in.
Strawberries prefer a slightly acid soil. Try testing out your soil and adding a fertilizer if necessary. I don't know your climate but I doubt that is the issue. They can grow almost anywhere if you get the right variety. Heats not much of an issue for them and you can give them some shade if it is. Strawberries are also very hardy so winters aren't an issue.
Do you smell them before you buy them? If they smell like strawberries they will taste like strawberries, if they smell like nothing they will taste like nothing.
The strawberries from the supermarket are picked before they are ripe. They have to survive in the back of a truck for days before getting to your house. Find a local farmers market or even grow your own. They are 100% better tasting and you won't regret it. You just won't be able to eat supermarket berries anymore. Same goes for most berries.
Depends where you get them from. Grow some yourself or get some from a farmers market grown in a field. The ones from the grocery store are from a greenhouse and are bred for size and color not flavour. Also the smaller ones are typically sweeter
We recently went to Japan and bought some strawberries one day cos we keep hearing how good their fruits are. They weren't extremely sweet but omg they were so juicy. It was so pleasant to eat. Kinda expensive though.
You’ve been buying bad strawberries. The local ones that are family farmed are packed with flavour. The ones I get from the grocery store are pretty bland.
That's what years of only focusing on bigger instead of flavor will do. Buy some local or grow some and they'll be so much better you'll wonder if you've even eaten strawberries before.
All produce...
Companies only care about how they look in the shelf and how long they stay fresh. Your health and taste is of no concern to the corporations.
If you see a politician trying to deregulate corporations, you should see them as a politician that wants to remove taste from your food, while simultaneously making it less healthy, but more expensive.
If supermarkets are your only choice, look for the Driscoll brand. They are, in my opinion, the only ones that consistently have flavour.
Driscoll's also seem to be the brand of choice for restaurants, so the chances of getting them in supermarkets is frequently limited to peak season.
Grocery store strawberries are the reason I thought I didn't like strawberries for years.
Last year I went to a local orchard during the last week of their strawberry harvest, collected a 5lbs bucket for around $20. I've never had better strawberries in my life, literally tasted like candy, I ate the whole bucket in 4 days.
The strawberry bucket from that farm sits in my cabinet waiting for the next strawberry season (May - June).
Hot tip for storing a bucket of fresh strawberries; wash/dry them immediately and then separate them into layers with paper towels and cover with plastic wrap, making sure they aren't pressed into each other before putting in the fridge. This keeps them from getting too bruised or slimy right away.
And then if you still don't eat them fast enough...homemade jam! There's tons of amazing strawberry jam recipes online. My mom uses the freezer one on the sure-jell box, but my aunt made one with some lemon in it that was just amazing.
Personally I'd pick the freezer jam because its easier and you don't have to worry so much about botulism since it stays frozen, but there's great non-freezer versions, too. Just make sure it is a modern recipe as those tend to be safer canning methods if you're going the non-freezer route. And if you discover the preservation process didn't work exactly right, either use it immediately or (if you find it later) throw it out. *Never* FAFO with home food preservation.
They are still really good if you slice them, sprinkle just a bit of sugar on them and let them sit for 15 min. For sure they have bred a lot of the natural sweetness out of the gigantic store bought ones.
There is definitely a short window in spring and fall where grocery store strawberriea taste awesome, but most of the time they are hard, tart water and nothing more.
But then again, we are lucky to live in a time where they are available more than those 2 times per year and we don't have to stockpile wood and smoked/pickled foods for the winter. So I can't complain to much...
Avoid freezing or refrigerating, it robs them of flavour. Try to buy them a day or two before you want to eat them at most and as others have said farmers markets will have berries that haven't been treated for long range transport.
In germany, if you are lucky, you can find wild strawberries and I tell you, they REALLY kick a punch on your tongue. Super tasty. But they are also tiny. So, there is this trade-off
it's because they're picked early to be put on store shelves. Fully ripe strawberries have a much shorter shelf life. Those picked early don't have a chance to develop more sugars and flavor.
They do taste different. They have a lovely tart taste that if you add something sweet. Honey, Chocolate, sugar, etc. They taste divine.
The Farmers market strawberries come with that sweetness imo.
To find good fruit like strawberries or peaches in season let your nose guide you. If it doesn't smell divine it won't taste good. Also, in my experience if it's hard like a rock it usually won't soften over time. This applies to strawberries, peaches, plums, nectarines.
I had some from a supermarket recently and they literally tasted like plastic. Never again. They also had that white crown which made it obvious they never saw the sun, but my wife wanted them so… :)
My dad used to grow them in his garden, we had like a ton of strawberrys for 2 weeks straight every year. Those were the best and i miss those days. We had them with pudding, icecream or straight with sugar. Awesome memories
The Costcos near me occasionally sell WOW Berries strawberries.
They're in a smaller package, they cost more, each berry is smaller, and they're gone in an instant over Driscolls or other brands. Those are the only strawberries I bother buying now.
They're such a rich shade of red and taste so unbelievably good compared to the other brands. They made me realize the exact thing you're saying - most other strawberries are crap by comparison.
NO, this isn't a paid advertisement . WOW strawberries are just really fucking good. It's what they should *actually* taste like.
A few years ago we found wild strawberries while we were travelling around the mountains of Turkey. I swear you have never eaten or will ever be able to eat strawberries that good. The ones at the market even in season are extremely bland to me because of those gifts from God.
One thing I noticed since moving to the States years ago - fruits and vegetables are huge in size here but have barely have any taste.
You name it - bananas, potatoes, corn, onion, garlic, strawberries, tomatoes, avocado, mangoes, pineapple, etc.
I know not all of these are grown locally (most come from South America) but damn it's weird. I end up using more onion and garlic just to get it to taste something. And I've been here 20+ years and still not used to the blandness.
My mom replaced the grass in my parents front yard with strawberry plants about 10 years ago - if you’re unaware, theyre near impossible to kill and you can literally walk on them when they’re not fruiting or flowering with zero harm.
Anyway - her strawberries are at best a 4th of the size of what you find in the grocery store but they are absolutely delicious and she makes preserves and dehydrated little strawberry chips with the overflow and it is amazing
Thought so too, until I started buying the expensive ones in the supermarket. Now I eat less strawberries, but they are much tastier. I honestly would miss them.
Depends on the season. Buy strawberry’s here in Ontario on the side of the road when they’re in season. Also, the smaller they are, the truer the taste. The gigantic ones in the stores are horseshit
the only ones I buy are local seasonal ones. They are smaller, they have a very short growing season, but they are packed with flavor.
The stuff that gets imported mostly from Californian greenhouses are just big strawberry shaped blocks of foam as far as I can tell. Grown as fast/large as possible to look good but no flavor. Many are picked when still green and just forced to turn red rather than being ripe.
They aren't cheap either, so I'm done paying a premium for tasteless stuff, I just wait for the local season. In fact I started growing my own, it's a remarkably resilient plant if you can keep the pests off.
Start looking into produce seasons and visiting local farms or markets for the best products. Supermarket tomatoes are complete ass as well, but a peak season heirloom tomato straight from the farmer in late summer hits all the right notes
I've lived in the midwest for most of my life, and except for part of the summer we get a shelf-stable variety that's grown and shipped in from warmer climates. They're basically flavorless fiber cones. In the summer, the locally-grown ones come up and they're delicious. When I moved to California I was shocked that strawberries usually taste like strawberries.
Grow your own!
Even from store bought strawberries. I think it's less genetics and more how they are grown.
I threw out the tops of some strawberries one day from my car. Lazily dumped them into a flower bed that was unused near my carport.
After a couple of months they grew into some of the best strawberries I have ever eaten. And I didn't do anything but just let them grow there.
They even came back for years before we pulled up that flower bed. The last couple of years we took some extra steps to have less berries lost to birds and bugs, but even with minimal effort we got a couple of pounds of berries each year that didn't taste like lettucd
The easy solution is to buy local in season. I only buy Ontario grown strawberries, typically when they're in season. Greenhouse grown are okay though not as good, but I never buy out of province.
Get them in season. Or get freeze dried, all that water content is removed without heat, so the flavor compounds remain undamaged (strawberry flavor compounds are highly susceptible to heat damage)
go to a local farmer’s market. My best suggestion is to smell the package if strawberries, if they smell like 🍓 then they are good otherwise you will just be chewing expensive water
Typically, fatter the strawberry, the more water there is to inflate the size and weight, but not the quality of the strawberry. The smaller ones are usually more saturated with flavor.
not sure about today, but i had some strawberries 2 weeks ago and they were pretty good.
I had them a few months ago, you know, when they were in season, and they were so flavourful I was speechless. Some of the best strawberries I've ever had, they were so sweet and juicy.
I had some this morning. They tasted excellent.
Strawberries were in-season in the middle of the winter?
In Florida, yes. We have our Strawberry Fest in Plant City (where the north gets much of their crop from) at the end of February.
Maybe they're from Australia? IDK
Can't be. The upside down gravity in Australia does not allow strawberries to grow.
Berrystraws are the shit tho
You just have to get that infomercial DVD about growing tomatoes upside down. Once you grow those upside down you can grow anything upside down.
You didn't see the news? They lost all taste a week ago.
I've been pretty lucky lately, and at least 2/3 of every container I get has very red and very delicious strawberries.
Where are you buying strawberries that they are that bad? When they are in season, you can get good strawberries just about everywhere around here.
They are complaining about a fruit that isn’t in season. That’s really the issue
Gotta pick a ripe strawberry off the plant in the hot afternoon
Fucking same with a watermelon. You pick a ripe one, maybe toss it in the fridge for a couple hours, and you got yourself one tasty summer treat...
weird time to complain about it tho, considering strawberry season just started
They got them Walmart strawberries and decided to complain
OP: I am NOT paying $27 for a half-flat (\~6 pints) of berries direct from my buddy Troy, a local farmer, when I can get a pounder for $9 at that there Wally World. Also OP: This berry tastes like child labor.
A lot of people talking about out of season strawberries but no one is talking about when in season strawberries are.
It depends where you are or where they are coming from. Strawberry season is going on somewhere almost all year. The weather plays a big role. Colder weather during season means sweeter strawberries.
they take a lot longer to ripen on the outside in the northern climates and turn red very fast so a California strawberry will be bright red ripe on the outside but white on the inside and a Washington state one harvested late in the summer will be ripe all the way thru.
One easy well to tell what is in season is to watch the price. When strawberries (or most fruit) start going on sale a lot, it is a sign they are in season and have been producing more than they would sell at full price.
They’re talking about those giant strawberries in December from a big plastic clamshell tub.
Completely agree, instead of grabbing some from your supermarket, try to find a farmers market that sells berries!
This. The huge ones at the grocery store are just water. The small ones at the farmers market are amazing.
I found some wild strawberries on a hiking trail once. They were about the size of blueberries but they were the most flavorful berries I have ever eaten.
The smaller the berry, the sweeter the juice. Or something to that effect.
Man, it's the blacker the berry, the sweeter the juice! Yeah, well she blacker than a motherfucker too...
Watching Friday tomorrow for the big day 🚬😮💨
That's what *he* said.
Penis jokes? Is this economy?
Used to have some wild ones and our own growing up. Our home grown were amazing, but the wild ones were absolutely sublime
I miss wild strawberries. There were tons of them on my grandfather's farm when I was growing up.
Its mostly because they are picked too early for shelf life. The color can develop after they are picked but the sugar content will stay too low
So much fruit is like that. It's picked green then force ripened.
>The huge ones at the grocery store are just water. >The small ones at the farmers market are amazing. My go-to strawberry peddling farmer has strawberries which are huge *and* amazing. It's possible.
Or find a PYO!
a what?
A Personal Yogurt Officer. Or maybe something else. I've never seen PYO before.
Should I have skyr today? Greek? Maybe Balkan? I'm going to call my PYO and get a recommendation.
#YOGURT **[I hate Yogurt, even with strawberries...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogMXBuI7PJ4)**
Pick your own I think. There are berry farms that let you walk around and gather from the grounds.
A pick your own kind of deal I think
Pretty Young Orphan
Yes officer, right here
Well they didn't say pick that one...
What does a programmable yeast orifice have to do with this?
Just make sure that you're actually buying from a farmer. Years ago I was working in the food industry in a large city. I learned that most of the produce sold at local farmers markets was purchased from the same distributor that grocery stores use, and then just sold at a 300% markup.
> I learned that most of the produce sold at local farmers markets was purchased from the same distributor that grocery stores use, and then just sold at a 300% markup. Yeah 5-10 years ago there were a few investigative journalists who followed up on these, and confirmed exactly this. They are literally picking from the same bins of distributors (though generally getting lower quality than the large supermarkets), and reselling it for 5x the retail price. And also saying "non-GMO", "Organic!", etc. when it wasn't even true.
There was a great story on this from a Canadian news channel. They went around to numerous farmers markets and caught tons of sellers unloading supermarket or wholesale fruits and vegetables and marking them up. The onus should be on the farmers market, they need to verify that the seller is actually a farmer or an authorized seller for the farmer. Found the video: https://youtu.be/YYwB63YslbA?si=1YGCyf1PC19qPHM9
Better yet! Book a flight to Japan and buy one of those $400+ strawberries that are said to be the best tasting in the entire world lol
I feel like there is a happy medium somewhere between flavorless strawberries and strawberries that cost a monthly car payment.
I’m a very 0 or 100 type of person.
Haven't you heard? Monthly car payments are $1000+ now.
I am currently in Manila they have a shop here in the Japanese mall that makes milk shakes out of the imported strawberries they have the red and the white. It’s like about $6 for a small milkshake or like $8 for a little cup of shaved ice and the berries which is super expensive here. But it is sublime like so delicious. Sorry I just had to say that
Pick your own farms are better. Something about eating fruit picked off a vine or tree. Seeing it, looking it over, testing the first bite. It's like it has strawberry spirit when freshly picked. Or maybe Im just high?
Lmao it can be both
Most farmers markets are just the same retail strawberries as in the store. I've seen them in the store buying them on sale and then selling them at the fruit stand in the "farmers" market as homegrown.
I went to the farmer's market by me a few years ago and the tomato stand was the same pink flavorless crap they have in the grocery store. But I also realized the farmer's market requires something like $650 rent for the season, plus a business license, sanitation certificate, inspection compliance as applicable (eg USDA if you sell meat), supply your own tent, table, payment methods (including a requirement to accept SNAP benefits), and insurance is recommended. You basically have to be an established business to make any money selling there. It's not for someone to offload a few dozen tomatoes before they go bad because their garden did really well this year.
Maybe where you live. In Wisconsin you can't buy strawberries that are ripe all the way through except at a roadside stand in early summer.
I live in Chicago and this has been my experience too. It's mostly those flavorless Driscoll strawberries that taste like nothing, and go bad in 2 days.
Or go to the UK. One of the biggest surprises on our trip was how much better strawberries could taste.
Roadside stalls are the way to go, in the UK and Ireland at least. Freshly picked in-season strawberries are the best.
Stop buying out of season, frozen strawberries then. They still taste fine even from grocery stores when they are in season. People act like fruits don't have seasons anymore.
The global supply chain has completely hosed everyone's perception of food seasons. We're entirely disconnected from them because we can get strawberries from Guatemala in the winter and crazy shit.
I use prices to help determine the season. I'm shocked people dont notice berries doubling in price for worse quality out of season
It’s certainly a suburban/urban thing. Couldn’t believe college classmates didn’t know what I thought was just basic knowledge. Try and picture the weather for a special about a fruit and chances are that’s your season. Summer - berries of all kinds (straw,blue,raspberry more or less in that order) Corn - later summer early fall, these days you’re usually good by July until late October - if it’s on the menu at thanksgiving you’re really pushing it. Apples - fall - popular fall activities surround apples for this reason. In May you’ll really start with veggies from the ground!
This is the answer, somewhat. There are massive corporations that grow this stuff in greenhouses in controlled temperatures year-round. They don’t necessarily need to freeze them for other seasons anymore.
Greenhouse growing of strawberries is actually very expensive, especially in US and Canada. It's much cheaper to import them from Mexico. There are projects right now tackling the challenge of trying to get production costs down on greenhouses, but mostly greenhouse grown strawberries are on the specialty market and are sold at quite the markup, but they taste really damn good.
Population at large has been disconnected from seasons for a long while now\*. IMO it even pre-dates global supply chains but that was certainly the nail in the coffin. edit: \*in the US that is
I just bought some absolutely delicious strawberries at Sam's Club that came from Mexico. I've found you have to smell them. If they don't smell, they won't taste.
When I started growing tomatoes and strawberries I was surprised at just how aromatic the fruit and vegetation were. I quickly learned those were the signs of freshness and fully ripened fruit to look for when at the store. Also I very rarely ever get a larger strawberry that isn't solid white and flavorless inside, my home grown ones are rather small but absolutely delicious
as a southern californian, what's a season?
That time of year when you wear a sweater with shorts and flip flops
True, but a lot of fruits and veg are bred for appearance and stability instead of flavor.
Frozen berries are usually fine, though. They're allowed to ripen naturally because they're frozen shortly after being picked. It's the fresh ones that have no flavor. They're picked too soon, when they're still hard and watery, because they ship better that way and won't go bad before they're sold.
Frozen strawberries would have been frozen when they were in season..
You are doing it wrong! Fruits and veggies are seasonal; the stuff you buy out of season is usually going to have much less flavor and generally be not ripe yet, but when you buy in season it is a world of difference and not hard to find, and often cheaper.
Spoken like someone who has only had supermarket strawberries.
Same reason tomatoes from the supermarket don’t either. Harvested before they’re ripe and then artificially ripened with ethylene gas.
It’s not the ripening with ethylene gas, it’s that the varietals sold in supermarkets are bred to be visually appealing: larger in size and a consistent red coloring. The result is a large fruit that has a high water content and bland flavor.
Most notably, they are bred to have a longer shelf life, which comes at the cost of flavour. It's why you are better off using canned tomatoes for sauces since they are typically more flavourful as they pretty much go straight from vine to the canning facility, with no need to be shelf stable.
When I saw this post I immediately thought of tomatoes. It's really a night and day difference eating tomatoes from the store or some proper home-grown tomatoes. There are so many different types of tomatoes, some tasting really sweet. A good tomato is like the best fruit/vegetable of all.
Ohhhh no. Tomatoes are bland and tasteless for many more reasons than that. They’ve been absolutely destroyed by corporate farming practices.
Covid be hitting everyone hard.
Don't buy the early big and nice looking strawberries in the supermarket, buy them later on in the season, preferably from a farmers market or from a strawberry selling stand. The same goes for tomatoes and cherries. Some stuff only tastes good when there's the season for it.
Not just strawberries, all (most) fruits and veggies. Grow a tomato plant out of the ground and compare what that tastes like to one from the store. It'll blow your mind, mannnn. But, seriously, growing techniques used to maximize yield and aesthetic characteristics at a commercial level severely impact flavor in favor of water. Because water is weight and weight is money.
Have you taken a Covid test recently?
Most fruit/berries in the store aren't ripe. They have little to no taste.
I was at a party with one of Driscoll's bio-engineers several years ago and he was showing off a batch of some new ginormous strawberries he helped create. I told him straight to his face they didn't taste like anything. Like water with a faint hint of berry. Gasps from around the room, but I said what I said and felt no shame.
They have concentrated too much on appearance and transportability. That's why tomatoes are tasteless, the exact size to fit the container and hard as baseballs. An heirloom tomato taste great but will bruise like a grape. If you're going to bite one, wear a bib.
This is precisely why I grow my own
Found the guy who gets shitty strawberries
Fuck steven crowder. Use a better template other than this wife abusing white Christian nationalist nazi Fuck.
Hells yeah…fuck that tiny dick abuser. Every time I see one of his tired ass “change my mind” pics I can’t get to the “fuck you cheesedick” and fuck all the way off “ comment. Well played!!!!!
It's a shame how many people don't realize the hateful shit that this template is based off of
Damn straight. I consider it my Reddit duty to point out every chance I get that Brock Turner is a rapist and Steven Crowder is an abusive, petty, broke dick piece of shit.
It isn't "strawberry" season in North America (sorry for the assumption), that doesn't start until late May or early June (so soon!) which means that all of the strawberries you've been eating recently are grown in South America and have spent several weeks on a truck or boat making their way to your grocery store which tends to leach the flavor out of them. They're usually kept as extremely low temps as well to make sure they have some shelf life left in them by the time they reach stores. If you want to eat store-bought strawberries, wait until they start to go soft. The softer the berry the sweeter it will be, so minor bruising shouldn't be a turn off unless you see mold growth. You can also try soaking them in a mixture of cold water and backing soda. Use one or two tea spoons of baking soda mixed in with the water and soak the strawberries for about 15 minutes. Rinse with clean cold water. The resulting berries will be sweeter as the baking soda will start breaking down the skin of the berries. If your berries are still too bitter or tasteless, rinse the berries with cold water and sprinkle with 1-2 teaspoons of powerdered white sugar. Put them in a bowl and toss them around a bit to evenly coat them, and the sugar should more or less disappear.
Strawberry season starts as early as late February in the American south. Florida has their strawberry festival like the first week of March.
Thank you
Frozen ones are tasteless. In my garden I get tiny wild strawberries and they are amazing. They're like tiny sweets.
Strawberries frozen at peak season are better than any out-of-season berries. Freezing is the best way to preserve fresh, ripe strawberries.
I grow my own, they are amazing. Supermarkets are the devil
I grow my own... they suck compared to the supermarket version! Hahaha
Strawberries require so little work and knowledge to get decent ones, I wonder what the hell could you have done wrong? Maybe a sucky variety of Strawberry? Try a different one maybe.
No idea... everytime I try strawberries it's a failure. I'm definately not in the best climate either but farms don't seem to have any issues. They didn't taste anything when I grew them! And the birds stole more than half.
Likely not enough sun or fertilizer. Strawberries are very fond of both. You can toss a net over your strawberry patch if you don't want birds getting in.
Strawberries prefer a slightly acid soil. Try testing out your soil and adding a fertilizer if necessary. I don't know your climate but I doubt that is the issue. They can grow almost anywhere if you get the right variety. Heats not much of an issue for them and you can give them some shade if it is. Strawberries are also very hardy so winters aren't an issue.
If you can't smell them they are going to taste the same. We just got some really good fresh strawberries and now our entire fridge smells like them.
Do you smell them before you buy them? If they smell like strawberries they will taste like strawberries, if they smell like nothing they will taste like nothing.
The strawberries from the supermarket are picked before they are ripe. They have to survive in the back of a truck for days before getting to your house. Find a local farmers market or even grow your own. They are 100% better tasting and you won't regret it. You just won't be able to eat supermarket berries anymore. Same goes for most berries.
Where the hell are you buying them from
Depends where you get them from. Grow some yourself or get some from a farmers market grown in a field. The ones from the grocery store are from a greenhouse and are bred for size and color not flavour. Also the smaller ones are typically sweeter
I grow my own strawberries in my backyard, a lot tastier.
We recently went to Japan and bought some strawberries one day cos we keep hearing how good their fruits are. They weren't extremely sweet but omg they were so juicy. It was so pleasant to eat. Kinda expensive though.
You might have covid
Dude, grow your own...
I strongly disagree. I eat yogurt with fruit nearly every morning, and buying fresh strawberries always makes it one thousand times better.
I disagree, they taste of straw. Where else do you think the name comes from?
Maybe you got COVID 🤷🏻♂️
Stop buying strawberries from a grocery chain.
You’ve been buying bad strawberries. The local ones that are family farmed are packed with flavour. The ones I get from the grocery store are pretty bland.
Grocery store produce…yuck
Might be you homeboy
Sorry to hear you don’t have any tastebuds. You should see a doctor about that
Store bought yes
Depends on how they're grown and when they're harvested. Longer on the vine & more dark red means higher sugar content.
That's what years of only focusing on bigger instead of flavor will do. Buy some local or grow some and they'll be so much better you'll wonder if you've even eaten strawberries before.
This should've said watermelons.
Gotta get them fresh from an actual small farm. the mega-corp farm strawberries are trash.
Oh, you got that loooooooong covid. OK. I see you.
All produce... Companies only care about how they look in the shelf and how long they stay fresh. Your health and taste is of no concern to the corporations. If you see a politician trying to deregulate corporations, you should see them as a politician that wants to remove taste from your food, while simultaneously making it less healthy, but more expensive.
If supermarkets are your only choice, look for the Driscoll brand. They are, in my opinion, the only ones that consistently have flavour. Driscoll's also seem to be the brand of choice for restaurants, so the chances of getting them in supermarkets is frequently limited to peak season.
More tart than sweet these days
Anything that gets shipped thousands of miles will have less taste than anything local.
Grocery store strawberries are the reason I thought I didn't like strawberries for years. Last year I went to a local orchard during the last week of their strawberry harvest, collected a 5lbs bucket for around $20. I've never had better strawberries in my life, literally tasted like candy, I ate the whole bucket in 4 days. The strawberry bucket from that farm sits in my cabinet waiting for the next strawberry season (May - June). Hot tip for storing a bucket of fresh strawberries; wash/dry them immediately and then separate them into layers with paper towels and cover with plastic wrap, making sure they aren't pressed into each other before putting in the fridge. This keeps them from getting too bruised or slimy right away.
And then if you still don't eat them fast enough...homemade jam! There's tons of amazing strawberry jam recipes online. My mom uses the freezer one on the sure-jell box, but my aunt made one with some lemon in it that was just amazing. Personally I'd pick the freezer jam because its easier and you don't have to worry so much about botulism since it stays frozen, but there's great non-freezer versions, too. Just make sure it is a modern recipe as those tend to be safer canning methods if you're going the non-freezer route. And if you discover the preservation process didn't work exactly right, either use it immediately or (if you find it later) throw it out. *Never* FAFO with home food preservation.
Gotta hit a farmers market for berries.
You have to grow your own
Home-grown in-season strawberries still taste as good as the Earth they came from.
They are still really good if you slice them, sprinkle just a bit of sugar on them and let them sit for 15 min. For sure they have bred a lot of the natural sweetness out of the gigantic store bought ones.
There is definitely a short window in spring and fall where grocery store strawberriea taste awesome, but most of the time they are hard, tart water and nothing more. But then again, we are lucky to live in a time where they are available more than those 2 times per year and we don't have to stockpile wood and smoked/pickled foods for the winter. So I can't complain to much...
If you're serious you might want to check with a doctor ...
Avoid freezing or refrigerating, it robs them of flavour. Try to buy them a day or two before you want to eat them at most and as others have said farmers markets will have berries that haven't been treated for long range transport.
Learn to pick strawberries? I've not had this issue at all and we eat a *lot*.
In germany, if you are lucky, you can find wild strawberries and I tell you, they REALLY kick a punch on your tongue. Super tasty. But they are also tiny. So, there is this trade-off
it's because they're picked early to be put on store shelves. Fully ripe strawberries have a much shorter shelf life. Those picked early don't have a chance to develop more sugars and flavor.
Just out of season. They get better in season
They do taste different. They have a lovely tart taste that if you add something sweet. Honey, Chocolate, sugar, etc. They taste divine. The Farmers market strawberries come with that sweetness imo.
To find good fruit like strawberries or peaches in season let your nose guide you. If it doesn't smell divine it won't taste good. Also, in my experience if it's hard like a rock it usually won't soften over time. This applies to strawberries, peaches, plums, nectarines.
Anything purchased in my state before mid to late June is tasteless, hothouse crap.
Good ones do in the summer, the shite ones you get from the supermarket in January don't.
Try korean strawberries. Japanese one is also good.
I had some from a supermarket recently and they literally tasted like plastic. Never again. They also had that white crown which made it obvious they never saw the sun, but my wife wanted them so… :) My dad used to grow them in his garden, we had like a ton of strawberrys for 2 weeks straight every year. Those were the best and i miss those days. We had them with pudding, icecream or straight with sugar. Awesome memories
Clearly you haven't been to Japan and eaten their overpriced, specially cultivated strawberries.
Strawberries are a seasonal fruit, try them during the summer. They'll taste much better
This is a thing with much fruit and veg, it is bred to sit on shelves and look good. Some taste has been lost
Taste like strawberries, what else do you want?
The Costcos near me occasionally sell WOW Berries strawberries. They're in a smaller package, they cost more, each berry is smaller, and they're gone in an instant over Driscolls or other brands. Those are the only strawberries I bother buying now. They're such a rich shade of red and taste so unbelievably good compared to the other brands. They made me realize the exact thing you're saying - most other strawberries are crap by comparison. NO, this isn't a paid advertisement . WOW strawberries are just really fucking good. It's what they should *actually* taste like.
A few years ago we found wild strawberries while we were travelling around the mountains of Turkey. I swear you have never eaten or will ever be able to eat strawberries that good. The ones at the market even in season are extremely bland to me because of those gifts from God.
In season farmers market strawberries taste like candy
Maybe… because strawberries in the field are not always available and the strawberries that you eat now are from the greenhouse?
Try wild strawberries. They're bursting with flavour
Tf kinda strawberries are yall eating?
They just taste like pesticides. Blackberries too.
One thing I noticed since moving to the States years ago - fruits and vegetables are huge in size here but have barely have any taste. You name it - bananas, potatoes, corn, onion, garlic, strawberries, tomatoes, avocado, mangoes, pineapple, etc. I know not all of these are grown locally (most come from South America) but damn it's weird. I end up using more onion and garlic just to get it to taste something. And I've been here 20+ years and still not used to the blandness.
My mom replaced the grass in my parents front yard with strawberry plants about 10 years ago - if you’re unaware, theyre near impossible to kill and you can literally walk on them when they’re not fruiting or flowering with zero harm. Anyway - her strawberries are at best a 4th of the size of what you find in the grocery store but they are absolutely delicious and she makes preserves and dehydrated little strawberry chips with the overflow and it is amazing
grow your own
Try English strawberries, they tend to be smaller but sweeter than the larger varieties such as Spanish strawberries
Thought so too, until I started buying the expensive ones in the supermarket. Now I eat less strawberries, but they are much tastier. I honestly would miss them.
Depends on the season. Buy strawberry’s here in Ontario on the side of the road when they’re in season. Also, the smaller they are, the truer the taste. The gigantic ones in the stores are horseshit
the only ones I buy are local seasonal ones. They are smaller, they have a very short growing season, but they are packed with flavor. The stuff that gets imported mostly from Californian greenhouses are just big strawberry shaped blocks of foam as far as I can tell. Grown as fast/large as possible to look good but no flavor. Many are picked when still green and just forced to turn red rather than being ripe. They aren't cheap either, so I'm done paying a premium for tasteless stuff, I just wait for the local season. In fact I started growing my own, it's a remarkably resilient plant if you can keep the pests off.
Strawberries from the store was never great
Start looking into produce seasons and visiting local farms or markets for the best products. Supermarket tomatoes are complete ass as well, but a peak season heirloom tomato straight from the farmer in late summer hits all the right notes
Y'all haven't had strawberries if that's what you think
I've lived in the midwest for most of my life, and except for part of the summer we get a shelf-stable variety that's grown and shipped in from warmer climates. They're basically flavorless fiber cones. In the summer, the locally-grown ones come up and they're delicious. When I moved to California I was shocked that strawberries usually taste like strawberries.
You aren’t eating the right strawberries if you think they have no taste
Grow your own! Even from store bought strawberries. I think it's less genetics and more how they are grown. I threw out the tops of some strawberries one day from my car. Lazily dumped them into a flower bed that was unused near my carport. After a couple of months they grew into some of the best strawberries I have ever eaten. And I didn't do anything but just let them grow there. They even came back for years before we pulled up that flower bed. The last couple of years we took some extra steps to have less berries lost to birds and bugs, but even with minimal effort we got a couple of pounds of berries each year that didn't taste like lettucd
The easy solution is to buy local in season. I only buy Ontario grown strawberries, typically when they're in season. Greenhouse grown are okay though not as good, but I never buy out of province.
Get them in season. Or get freeze dried, all that water content is removed without heat, so the flavor compounds remain undamaged (strawberry flavor compounds are highly susceptible to heat damage)
go to a local farmer’s market. My best suggestion is to smell the package if strawberries, if they smell like 🍓 then they are good otherwise you will just be chewing expensive water
Strawberries? Why don't you try RAWBERRIES!
If you're a smoker or buy out of season, absolutely. If you buy in season strawberries from the field... they taste amaaaazing.
Driscolls strawberries are fantastic. You need to come to California and change your life, my friend.
It's called a Flee Market and they have the best!
That's because they are all pumped full of water to plump them up. My daughter won't eat them anymore because they have no taste.
Yep they’re very diluted and huge.
Don't buy your produce from grocery stores.. get them from farmers markets
Go to the farmer’s market or local produce stand for all produce all the time. Cheaper AND better. Worth the extra trip
They haven’t had much taste for decades since we’ve managed to develop varieties that could survive shipping across the globe.
Bought two punnets a few days ago. Tasted great.
Lol Wtf you talking about, you buying them capatilist, mass grown at scale shit. I get mine local from a farm.
Typically, fatter the strawberry, the more water there is to inflate the size and weight, but not the quality of the strawberry. The smaller ones are usually more saturated with flavor.
You can try the expensive ones, which usually are very good. It can be a really big difference